East of Eden by John Steinbeck

The most famous book by the famous John Steinbeck is The Grapes of Wrath, but that's the only book of his most people bother to read because he writes particularly large books. I decided to be different and bought another one of his dustbowl classics - East of Eden - to be my first taste of Steinbeck.

While he does a good job of keeping me reading on, sometimes the story line wore thin and I found myself skipping pages. Sometimes it just goes on and on and there is quite a bit of empty dialogue that was begging to be skipped.

I didn't appreciate the story line revolving around the story of Abel and Cain. He does this twice in the book - two generations worth. My main caveat with such a story line is that it has been done to death - so many authors build a story around that of Abel and Cain and it's getting boring and Steinbeck does it twice in the same book.

The most interesting theme of the book is to do with the character of Catherine aka Kate. This was the "Evil Woman" character in the story - a scheming demon of a woman. It was reading about her that made this book. My main criticism of the character was not so much the character (although she dies young for some unexplained reason) but the way Steinbeck lacks the ability to fully explain her psychology - it's lacking in reality to a certain degree and he also has a chapter in the middle of the book where he monologues about Cathy, asking the question: is she really bad or just mad etc... I didn't like the way he attempted to shirk the responsibility of defining a realistic character by abandoning the attempt to justify and explain her behaviour.

Nonetheless, this was a good story and quite useful if you want some choice quotes about the evils of women... though I'm not going to list any quotes here - can't be bothered. I give this book 7/10. It's worth reading if you want to try some Steinbeck.

Two books read

I read two books in my spare time but have not blogged about them for different reasons.

The first book was Next by Michael Crichton. What a brilliant book, especially for biologists, albeit it has one or two technical errors which I will blog about on a later date. Its content might be a bit complicated for the layman, both in subject matter and in keeping mind of the vast array of characters and their sup/sub-plots, but it is a stunning piece of science fiction (or is some of it hidden science-fact?). It has so many choice quotes and articles in it that if I kept posting favourite quotes then I would have posted half the book on this blog! It's a great novel; Read it!

The next book I read was K-PAX IV by Gene Brewer. In the story, Prot has long since gone, Dr Brewer has retired and is sat at home when he suddenly gets a knock on his door and who is there except a friend of Prot who has decided to visit. Fled is a female ape-resembling creature that is very different in personality to Prot and I found it difficult to relate to that personality (no surprise) and thus it made the reading experience not as good as with the first three books. There is a lack of choice quotes from this book, but the book is worth reading nonetheless and a good addition to the series albeit it will surely be the last in the K-PAX series (I hope it will be). You have to get this book if you're a fan of the K-PAX series, not just for the sake of completing the series, but because it's a reasonably good book too.

I must admit that after reading Michael Crichton and then starting to read Gene Brewer I noticed the significant difference between their styles and truly, Crichton is a master. Brewer needs time to mature but is well on his way.

Avoid Boring People by James Watson

I read James Watson's autobiography a few weeks ago and here's the review:
http://bioinfornetics.blogspot.com/2009/10/avoid-boring-people-avoid-james-watson.html

I read the book while at the library during 2 week's worth of lunch breaks so I don't have it with me to pick select quotes and put them here... nor can I be bothered to do that to be honest ;).

Prey by Michael Crichton, Day 6 08:12am

Nor were individual birds genetically programmed for flocking behaviour. Flocking was nto hard-wired. There was nothing in the bird brain that said, "When thus-and-such happens, start flocking." On the contrary, flocking simply emerged within the group as a result of much simpler, low-level rules. Rules like, "Stay close to the birds nearest you, but don't bump into them." From those rules, the entire group flocked in smooth coordination.
Because flocking arose from low-level rules, it was called emergent behaviour. [p125]

Prey by Michael Crichton, Day 6 07:12am

"Hell, animals die in nature all the time. I mean, remember the business about those slashed cows? It was supposed to be aliens from UFOs that were slashing the cows. Finally turned out the cows were dying of natural causes, and it was decomposing gas in the carcasses that split them open..." [p106]

"Aren't there pictures? I think the environmentalists took pictures."
"Well, who cares? What will the pictures show, a dead coyote? Nobody is going to get worked up about a dead coyote..." [p106]

Independent and rebellious, Rosie had been a Shakespearean scholar at Harvard before she decided, in her words, that "Shakespeare is f*cking dead. For f*cking centuries. There is nothing new to say. What's the point?" [p116 - here, here]

Prey by Michael Crichton, Day 5 07:10am

The people who are coldly clear-eyed about the world around them have nothing but fantasies about themselves. [p77]

"...They want a donkey to pin the tail on." [p86]

"...My thighs are as big as sides of beef"...
"They rub together when I walk. Squishy." [p88]

Prey by Michael Crichton, Day 2 09:02am

Scalp Vein [p42 - Google]

Blood squirted down Amanda's face, into her eye. The nurse wiped it away. [p43 - how macabre]